A giant surprise for the hockey World Cup final! Tough assessment from Germany’s Finnish coach: “We didn’t play terribly well”

A giant surprise for the hockey World Cup final Tough

Germany beat the United States 4–3 in overtime at the men’s World Ice Hockey Championship. Germany’s coach Pekka Kangasalusta said the team was too confident after the quarter-final win.

Riku Porvari,

Henri Pitkänen

In the Men’s Ice Hockey World Championship, Germany defeated the United States in the semi-final with 4–3 goals in overtime. Finished the winning goal Frederik Tiffelswho also managed to score in the opening set.

– Extremely good feelings. Through quite hard work, we have dug ourselves into this situation, but what’s better than that? Winning never comes easy – especially in these rough conditions, the German coach Pekka Kangasalu stated after the match.

According to him, Germany felt too confident after Thursday’s quarter-final victory. On Saturday, Germany started the match slowly, but a “good possession goal” brought the team into the game, Kangasalusta said.

– I think we didn’t play terribly well, but well enough to be in the World Cup final.

After four minutes of the game, Germany was already down 2–0. The team succeeded with superiority and made a 1-2 reduction, thanks to which Germany rose to level after the middle of the first period. The score was 2-2 at the first break. There was only one goal in the second period, and the USA went into the break with a 3–2 lead.

Two minutes before the end of the game, Germany got into the attacking zone. Playing without a goalkeeper, the team ran the puck towards the US net. The puck finally went into the goal and overtime was tied at 3-3.

There was time to play overtime for about seven and a half minutes, until Tiffels managed to half run away from the left side. He decided to try and hit the puck in the back top corner with his accurate shot.

On Sunday, Canada and Germany will play for the world championship. Canada defeated Latvia 4–2 in the semifinals.

The final spot is Canada’s fourth in a row at the World Championships. Germany once again advanced to the finals of the current World Cup for the first time. Germany has reached fourth place twice in 2010 and 2021.

On the way to the final, Germany defeated Switzerland in the quarter-finals, which was considered one of the biggest championship favorites of the Games, as the Alpine country won Group B with a four-point margin over Canada.

USA–Germany 3–4 and (2–2, 1–0, 0–1)

01.11 1–0 Tuch (O’Connor, Grimaldi)
03.56 2–0 Grimaldi (Tuch)
12.22 2–1 Tiffels (Fischbuch, Kahun) yv
16.03 2–2 Szuber (Sturm, Peterka)
28.47 3–2 Eyssimont (O’Connor, Garland)
58.37 3–3 Noebels (Kahun, Gawanke)
67.32 3–4 Tiffels (Kahun, Müller)

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